This invention relates generally to apparatus and devices for enhancing control over snow skis in response to leg movements of the skier. More specificallly, this invention relates to an apparatus for obtaining improved ski control in response to natural unrestrained leg motions thereby increasing skier comfort and reducing likelihood of injury.
In the sport of snow skiing, considerable attention has been focused on improvements to skiing equipment which will provide enhanced control of the skis throughout a variety of traditional skiing movements. In this regard, modern ski boots have been developed to have a rigid shell construction for tightly encasing and substantially immobilizing the foot and ankle. The rigid ski boots thus prevent foot and ankle flexions which can otherwise attenuate the transfer of motion from the leg to the ski and thereby require accentuated leg motions to provide the desired skiing movements. While these modern rigid ski boots perform their intended function, they are accompanied by a significant number of major drawbacks. For example, rigid ski boots are particularly uncomfortable when walking or when standing upright on the skis. Moreover, rigid ski boots are tight fitting and thereby interfere with normal foot and leg circulation resulting in coldness of the feet and excessive muscular fatigue. These conditions reduce the sensitivity of the foot to skiing movements to thus increase the likelihood of injury. Furthermore, since the right boot locks the foot and ankle in place, the foot and ankle are precluded from absorbing and dissipating shock forces commonly encountered while skiing. Instead, the shock forces are transferred upwardly to the knee joint where they can result in injuries of a particularly severe and permanent nature.
In recognition of the problems attendant with rigid ski boots, a variety of devices and apparatus have been proposed for transferring leg movements to the ski through a force structure which bypasses the foot and ankle and thereby avoids any requirement to immobilize the foot and ankle. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,006,543; 3,747,235; 3,945,134; 4,021,053; 4,058,326; and 4,168,085, all of which depict brace-type structures connected between the leg and the ski for transmitting twisting motion directly from the leg to the ski. However, in these devices, rotation of the knee for turning purposes is both permitted and encouraged, in spite of the fact that this rotation is known to expose the knee to relatively severe injury. Moreover, in some of these devices, additional structures are provided to lock the leg in a fixed position of flexion to thereby indirectly lock the foot and ankle without requiring a rigid ski boot. However, locking of the leg is no more successful in preventing injuries than is the use of rigid boots, particularly when at least some unrestrained longitudinal leg flexion is desired for optimum comfort and ski control.
The present invention overcomes the problems and disadvantages of the prior art by providing apparatus for transferring lateral leg motions directly to the ski while permitting a selected and adjustable degree of unrestrained leg flexion in the longitudinal direction and while substantially resisting rotation of the knee during a turning movement.